


Rose Gold

by fairmanor



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alexis is a Mother, Bedtime Stories, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Reading, Unresolved Feelings, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27450919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: To hype up the holiday special of Sunrise Bay, Moira records a Christmas themed sleep story for the Calm app. While doing press for its release, Alexis realizes this is the first bedtime story she's ever heard from her mother.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & Moira Rose, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose
Comments: 21
Kudos: 61
Collections: Schitt's Creek: Frozen Over (2020)





	Rose Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  To hype up the holiday special of Sunrise Bay, Moira records a Christmas themed sleep story for the Calm app. While doing press for its release, Alexis realizes this is the first bedtime story she's ever heard from her mother.

“Alexis, I _promise_ this is the final one.”

“Okay, just hurry up and come back in here! You have, like, half an hour before you need to get out the door.”

With a sigh, Ted opens the door of their ensuite and comes back into the bedroom. He looks, in Alexis’ opinion, far too pleased with himself than is warranted for the absolute monstrosity currently gracing his top half.

Alexis snorts and covers her mouth with her hand. _“This_ is the one you’re going with? After three hours of umming and ahhing, you choose this?” she almost shrieks, her words struggling to escape through her gradually increasing cackles.

Ted’s laughing too now, the head of the shark sticking out the front of his [sweater](https://www.uglychristmassweater.com/product/3d-shark-plushie-ugly-christmas-sweater/) wobbling about as he walks over to Alexis. He sticks out a hand to her and pulls her up from the bed, laughing again when the shark gets in the way. Alexis scoots round it with a giggle to cup Ted’s face in her hands and kiss him softly.

“Have to disagree with you there, Lex,” he says, “it looks pretty fin-tastic to me.”

Alexis scoffs and swats her husband away. “Get ready,” she insists. “The champagne is in the fridge. Oh, and the hunt for caviar ended this morning. Couldn’t find any that wasn’t a gazillion dollars per jar.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Ted says, pulling his coat from the back of their bedroom door. “It’s an island themed party with a load of rich scientists. I’m pretty sure I don’t even need to bring anything at all.”

“Ted, you were the one that discovered the little whatever it was! What would my mom say if she heard that the man of the hour was reluctant to bring at least _something_ to the annual Christmas party?”

Ted rolls his eyes fondly at the familiar nickname. Alexis has been calling him the man of the hour for the past seven years, ever since he came back from the Galapagos with a startling scientific paper under his belt that led to the discovery of – well, Alexis had never really understood what the bug was or what was so special about it, but her husband had the zoological community in a frenzy. And Ted was proud, so she was proud.

Ever since then, he’d been meeting up with his old research team for annual Christmas parties. He’d started inviting Alexis along ever since they’d got back together, but there was something about Galapagos that felt fundamentally Ted’s. He’d gone there heartbroken and come back fulfilled, changed yet still the same beautiful goof she’d fallen in love with from behind a desk. She was happy to help him choose his ugly sweaters for the competition which he always won.

Once Ted is suited up for the bitterly cold New York December, he jogs downstairs and gently opens the little white door by the living room covered in unicorn and rainbow stickers. The sight inside warms Alexis in that soft, golden chamber of light inside her that she wasn’t sure was even there until she’d given birth. The small pastel string lights shaped like stars gently illuminate the little dresser and cot in which their two-year-old daughter is standing up with her back to them, whispering something to herself with a toy car in her hand.

Ted knocks a single knuckle on the door with a quiet “psst” and a short whistle. She spins around a little too fast and topples over, but smiles widely and crawls to the edge of her cot when she spies her parents.

“Daddy!”

“Hey, little bean!” Ted jogs up to the cot and plucks his daughter out, peppering her giggling face in kisses. Alexis leans against the doorframe and watches as she shoves her toy in Ted’s face, him nodding along fervently as he ‘listens’ to her babbling.

Ivy Rose Mullens looks so much more like her father. It was obvious from her very first breath; even the way she’d hiccupped and opened her eyes were devastatingly reminiscent of Ted. Alexis wouldn’t let the nurses take her away and wrap her up for ages. The birth had been difficult, but the warm, gently heavy spot in her arms where her new daughter lay was the only part of her that didn’t hurt.

Ted checks his watch and leans out of the way of Ivy’s grabbing hands as he hands her over to Alexis.

“You got plans to keep her tamed before her actual sleep tonight?” he says on a grimace. Alexis mirrors it. This part of the evening, between her final afternoon nap and bedding her down for the night, has historically been the most difficult to navigate.

“Well, I’m about to get emailed the final draft of Mom’s thing for that sleep app,” Alexis says, hoisting Ivy onto her hip and flipping her hair onto the other shoulder out of arm’s reach. “I kind of left it late. The Sunrise Bay special is dropping in like, three weeks. So, I thought I’d listen to it a bit later and see if it’ll get her down.”

Ted nods, and his phone chimes with a text. “Oh! The boys are outside. Gotta dash.”

“Champagne!”

“Champagne,” Ted repeats, doing a U-turn after he reaches the door to go grab it from the kitchen. He drops a kiss to Alexis’ lips and Ivy’s head before heading out into the night.

Alexis rocks Ivy a few times on her hip, bouncing her all the way into the kitchen to make herself some herbal tea and grab Ivy some fruit snacks.

“Know what we’re doing tonight, baby?” Alexis pinches her daughter’s cheek as the kettle boils, the gentle sound warm and soothing against the whistling wind outside. “Hm? Know what we’re gonna do?”

Ivy doesn’t pay attention for a few moments, too fixated on the strap of Alexis’ top, before responding slowly, “Hm…listen. Listen Granny’s thing.”

“Listen Granny’s thing, yes,” Alexis agrees, popping Ivy on the counter for a moment to pour her tea. She was glad she hadn’t caught on to Moira’s frequent requests that the girl refer to her as “Baka”. She might have had a flourishing career in the past near decade, but Moira never did quite let the Bosnia thing go.

Once settled in the living room, Alexis switches on the electric fire and puts a blanket over herself and Ivy. She grabs her laptop and opens her emails, where the file with Moira’s mp3 is waiting. The press team were quite vague about what it was going to be, just that it was something that was meant to be calming. If it was anything like her elaborate Thanksgiving speeches or ongoing attempts to “cherish the moment” on the last days of their meetups, then Alexis expected to be mildly perturbed at best by the recording. If it was anything to do with singing, then she would really start to regret blowing off that Natalia Dyer PR stunt for _this._

Nevertheless, she settles down and clicks the play button. The screen fills with a soft, soothing wash of pastel blue. Some chalk stripes of white are stroked over the top, brushing across the animation until a gentle cartoon of a winter cottage is swaying from side to side. Little snowflakes, hardly bigger than the single pixel of a screen, begin to slowly drift down.

The recording hasn’t even begun yet, but Alexis feels at ease. It’s a strange thing to have to associate with her mother, even in their much calmer, stabler recent years, but it seems to come naturally to her.

_“Are you sitting comfortably? Get yourself warm, and close your eyes.”_

Alexis’ first thought is that it’s odd hearing such plain, simple words coming out of her mother’s mouth. Just this morning she was screeching down the phone in her usual rollercoaster of emotions, Alexis only catching one heavily synonymised word in ten. Something stirs yet settles within her at the same time. Her hearing sharpens, and she feels herself listening closer than before.

_“For tonight’s sleep story, we travel to the South of France. I’m Moira Rose, and I’ll be your guide as we meander leisurely through the lavender fields and sleepy villages of Provence through the eyes of a little girl, Nora, and her magic gift…”_

And against her will, Alexis feels transported back to the smell of sugar cookies and Adelina’s smooth Spanish voice. Moira went through a phase when David and Alexis were younger, before they moved into the big – well, bigger – house, of keeping them both in one nursery like Victorian children. Six-year-old David, who had been in the throes of a deep Peter Pan obsession, welcomed the change and begged Adelina to read them bedtime stories. And because David liked to stamp and shout and plead then so did Alexis, and so Adelina conceded.

_“Every evening, Nora would open her bedroom window, letting the spellbinding scent of her hometown’s lavender fill her nose and her house. The heady, heathered aura of France’s blue gold, bright and proud in the sunset where the fields truly do glow in a warm, deep, chalky haze, Nora felt like she could fall right to sleep. But tonight was different. Nora could not sleep at all, for there was no scent, and there were no flowers.”_

Alexis sits, listening harder to the story about the little girl whose village has lost all its flowers, and wonders why it’s so hard to hear the story in Moira’s voice. Wonders why it’s so easy for Ivy, in comparison, to prod at the screen and squeal “Granny!”

And it hits her. Hits her as softly and gently as the smell of the lavender.

Not once, not once in her life, has her mother ever read her a bedtime story.

Alexis’ breath catches in her throat and she gasps softly, stopping herself from covering a hand over her mouth in case Ivy gets distracted.

Something flares up inside her, red and unexpected. The story fades until it’s neither Adelina’s nor Moira’s voice but just her own thoughts buzzing like a murmuration, resentful and full of regret. She’d had years. She’d had _years_ to read Alexis a bedtime story, but she hadn’t even found it within her to spare five minutes to lend her opulent vocal stream to some short, simple words that weren’t her own.

_“Nora continued searching, high and low, right and left, but there was no sign of them. She hadn’t asked for them to be taken away. She didn’t want them taken away! They were the best part of the village. They made her little village famous all around the world. What was she without them? Nora sat down among the soft, empty soil, and began to cry.”_

Ivy snuggles closer next to Alexis, murmuring some of the story’s words. Alexis shakes herself out of her overthinking and focuses on the story, on the little girl who lost everything. Her stomach churns, as it always does when something reminds her of her own house and livelihood being gutted ten years ago. Still, the anger fades, and there’s possessiveness in its place. For a mad moment, Alexis considers rejecting the draft. A part of her doesn’t want to share it with anyone, this recording of her mother’s voice, even if she does multiple interviews every month and has a strong following on social media ever since she worked out how to properly record live stories.

_“The more Nora thought about it, the more time she had to comprehend her loss, the stronger the strange, golden glow inside her chest became. After months with no flowers, Nora shot up in bed one night to find herself completely surrounded by them! They came deep from within, borne of her own will and innovation, shooting from her fingertips like silken vines, growing from the ends of her hair. She cut them off and spread them around the village, providing everyone with a bright, beautiful, sweet-smelling vase of her own construction. The lavender may have been gone, but there was ever more than before in its place; deep, rich sunflowers, gentle baby’s breath, stunning red roses.”_

One thing Alexis can’t deny is that her mother’s voice like this – stripped back, quiet, without any airs or graces – is utterly mesmerising. And the more she thinks about it, the more she recognises that voice from recent years. Moira is still ever Moira, brash and posturing and overdramatic, but her Thanksgiving speeches and mishaps at family barbecues are more of a pastime that they all watch with light amusement instead of a burden they bear from the result of Moira’s overindulgence.

The story concludes with Nora’s village coming back to life, different but so much better. Nora starts her own garden with the riches she has spilling out of her own hands, and becomes so much more than what she was. Ivy squeals and claps at the conclusion, babbling about flowers.

Alexis looks at her. Look at the blue Frozen pyjamas and the little tufts of blonde hair and Ted’s eyes, and is filled in every muscle and sinew with that warm rush she felt when she looked at her for the very first time. The warmth from the fire is just so, her tea is cool enough to drink, and Alexis feels something indiscernible slot into place ever so slightly.

She’s glad, unbelievably glad, that this is the only version of Moira Rose that Ivy will ever know.

_“Thank you ever so much for listening. I hope you all enjoyed that little tale. I wrote it several months ago with my dear daughter Alexis Mullens in mind. It was difficult to keep this one a surprise, I can tell you! Merry Christmas, Alexis. And Merry Christmas to all you listeners. Goodnight.”_

When the mp3 finishes, leaving a quiet, grainy rush of feedback in its wake, Alexis is stunned. She stares at the screen, unblinking, until it starts to sting her eyes and they film over with tears. Or perhaps that could have something to do with the lump closing her throat and her sudden urge to bury her face in the blanket and cry.

It was barely existent in her childhood and rare even after they moved to Schitt’s Creek, but when Alexis feels the full force of Moira Rose’s love, it’s _overwhelming._ It shoots straight to her veins, every single time. She’s powerless to the surprise, the gentle pull in her chest as it makes room for a love that was learned, but no less potent.

As Ivy nods off beside her, half-eaten fruit snacks in hand, Alexis pulls her phone out and slowly types in her mother’s number. Moira picks up almost immediately.

“Alexis! What is your reason for calling at this hour? Has the bebe come down with some frightful malaise? Are we ruined again? Are –”

Alexis smiles. Shakes her head. This mad, beautiful woman.

“No,” she says. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

**Author's Note:**

> The story in this fic was inspired by a real bedtime story! I’m going to update these notes once I remember the name.


End file.
